


Give and Take

by maremote



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 16:53:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24210121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maremote/pseuds/maremote
Summary: After the battle, Yennefer disappears, tired of Tissaia, tired of Geralt, tired of it all, just wanting to be free. Jaskier decides to go the coast alone, and Geralt and Ciri find each other.aka settle in folks its time for a nice long fix-it with plenty of angst
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Triss Merigold & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Kudos: 10





	Give and Take

**Author's Note:**

> ok i'll be honest- i haven't played the games or read the books (though i plan to.) so this is just me trying my best, pls be gentle

Jaskier’s way down the mountain is uneventful. 

There are no monsters hiding in the bushes, no epic adventures; no views that fill him with sudden inspiration, no turns-of-phrase that come to mind. Everything is quiet and still. It’s a beautiful day, by all accounts. He barely notices. 

On his way down, he comes across Roach, waiting patiently for Geralt to return. The sight of her raises a lump in his throat that it takes more effort to swallow than he would like to admit. 

Things similar to this have happened countless times. Noncommittal grunts by the way of hello, or goodbye, or yes or no. Eye-rolls and stony silence. Jaskier always took it as just being Geralt’s way. And Geralt might not have been very vocal, but he was no liar. 

So, Jaskier had spent all those years reasoning with himself, night after night, if he really wanted Jaskier to leave, he would’ve said so outright. If Geralt of Rivia truly resented Julian Alfred Pankratz following him around, lute in hand and song in mouth, singing his praises and filling the silence and worming his way into Roach’s good books, he would’ve looked Jaskier in the eyes and told him that-

Well, that if  _ life could give him one blessing, it would be to take Jaskier off his hands.  _

_ Should’ve seen it coming,  _ Jaskier thinks, burying his face in Roach’s mane. She whinnies, almost sounding concerned, and Jaskier has to bite back something between a laugh and a sob. 

He  _ had _ seen it coming, at first, when he’d first foisted himself on the Witcher, following him from village to village, writing and serenading and chattering away. He’d anticipated it, woken up every morning surprised to see Geralt still there, fully accepted that one day, Geralt’s tolerance for him would wear thin and he would be sent off. Until then, it would be glorious while it lasted, and he would have a tale like no other to tell afterwards, anyways. 

And then…

And then. 

And then there had been one night. 

It had been after a hunt, a year or so after Jaskier had composed  _ Toss a Coin to Your Witcher _ . Public opinion of Witchers had begun to churn with unrest; they were still deeply mistrusted, but there were people who questioned the hatred, now; a couple eyes that held curiosity instead of pure antagonism; things looked promising. 

Yet the majority still thought of Witchers as untrustworthy brutes, orc-like demons little better than the monsters they slayed; so it was that after the alderman begrudgingly tossed the Witcher the coins he was owed, they headed back to the inn to find themselves denied a night’s rest indoors. 

They could have resisted; Jaskier was ready to leap in with a song and promise to earn their stay, ready to coax coins for drink out of the other patrons’ pockets for the innkeeper’s profit; but Geralt had already turned on his heel and headed back out to Roach, so Jaskier followed, like he always did, like he always had, like he thought he always would. 

They ended up setting camp outdoors, in a small clearing a little under a mile away from town; it was dark by the time their bedrolls were out and a fire was underway. 

They’d both been exhausted, Geralt more so than Jaskier for obvious reasons. The fire busied itself tossing sparks up into the night air and catching them again, flipping them like coins; the air itself was the colour of Jaskier’s ink when the bottle ran dry and the black looked almost blue; firelight flung flickering warm light on their faces from below, and from far above, the cold blue light of the moon drew halos on Geralt’s white hair.

He was beautiful, Jaskier had to admit; and he could see unwritten songs hiding in the sharp shadows the fire drew on his face, the light and the exhaustion of the day softening it in a way that left with Jaskier with an unexpected tugging feeling somewhere around his heart.

Jaskier found himself humming as he went through the saddlebags for food- humming something that wasn’t quite a melody yet, but had the potential to be, someday, if he dared to commit it to paper in its current uncertain state.

But while Roach had munched happily on grass, Jaskier had up-ended their saddlebags to find medical supplies, potions, and weaponry tools- but no food. 

“What I wouldn’t give to have bread in my pants now,” he’d bemoaned, flinging himself dramatically down onto a log.

Geralt had huffed a laugh at that. It had left the ghost of a smile on his lips, and suddenly, there, sitting by the fire, surrounded by a salt-and-pepper blanket of quiet and the fire’s crackling and crickets, Jaskier desperately,  _ desperately _ wanted to know what that half-smile tasted like. 

The wanting didn’t hit him and knock him over the way Geralt had when they had first met; instead it landed soft and warm, like a hot meal somewhere in the pit of his stomach;l it grew like rosevines, wrapped itself around his bones and sprouted roses of songs from his fingers and lips that he was desperate to have Geralt pick, but Geralt had never been one for flowers it seems. 

He had stared at Geralt’s softened profile that night by the fire, and he’d felt like he would choke on fallen rose petals. 

And now…

Well. 

Jaskier pulls himself away from Roach; scratches her behind the ear one more time, and then continues, past Roach, past the forest, keeps walking through town and then walks farther. 

The ache in his heels builds and builds, and Jaskier lets it; hopes it will drown out the uncomfortable twisting of his stomach, the weight on his heart- but those pains stay audible, harmonize with the sweat and the soreness, don’t drown so much as they offer bold contrast to his sorrow.

He isn’t sure where he’s going. His lute strap is digging into his chest, and he can feel the beginnings of a bruise. 

He keeps going. 

***   
He gets to an inn, and the innkeeper calls for a song. 

It doesn’t take much effort to plaster a smile across his face and fake a sparkle in his eyes. He’s done it before, countless times; and if he ever feels his facade breaking, there are countless sad ballads he knows that could justify sorrow during a performance. 

He doesn’t play sad songs this time, though. He plays every bawdy, happy song he knows, plucking the strings until the calluses on his fingers feel broken-in, like they’re getting calluses on top of calluses. By some miracle,  _ Toss A Coin To Your Witcher  _ isn’t requested once; and by the time he’s finished, the tables are practically varnished with spilled ale, there’s a drunk man snoring in the corner, and the barkeep is wiping down his counter with a cloth that leaves more dirt than it picks up. Jaskier can hear giggling from between the thin floorboards above him, and there’s the unmistakable staccato-pizzicato creaking of someone drunk stumbling up the stairs to their room. 

He sings one last song, a somber ballad that he performs for, fakes a tear or two, fakes a tremble in his voice; the truth is he doesn’t feel like crying, doesn’t feel like anything at all. He feels like some part of him has been hollowed out by greedy fingers; he lets it sit gaping and empty at the base of his guts and plays. 

When he finishes there’s drunken applause from a table before a woman practically clambers into the man’s lap and they get busy doing something quite different. The barkeep hollers at them to take it to a room and the woman practically drags the man upstairs, unexpected strength showing in the flex of her shoulders. Jaskier is absently wondering how often she does this when he feels a hand on his shoulder. 

For a brief, crazed second he thinks it’s Geralt, and then instantly the size of the hand, the indirectness of the touch and the  _ softness _ of it disproves his- theory? hope? Whatever it is, the man who’s touching him is no Geralt; but Jaskier lets him flirt with him, asks for his name and forgets it instantly, throws him a wink and an innuendo and directions to his room and heads upstairs. 

He feels the man’s eyes on him all the way up the stairs and is almost sick thinking about the times he has been performing for coin for Geralt and him’s stay and has felt eyes on his back to find curious amber ones following him. He firmly does  _ not  _ think about how easily that amber gaze made him shiver and how indifferent, borderline  _ repulsed,  _ this stranger makes him feel. 

It isn’t the man’s fault. He’s nice, quite charming, if a little arrogant, and he’s surprisingly good in bed. When the break apart near midnight and both lie panting and naked and sweaty on the obnoxiously hard and creaky bed, he says goodbye before he leaves and compliments Jaskier on his musical prowess- tosses an innuendo about the many skills Jaskier’s mouth possesses over his shoulder on his way out, a counterpoint for the one Jaskier opened with at the beginning of the proposition- and then he is gone, with a quiet click of the door. 

Jaskier doesn’t sleep again that night. He lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. He tries to hum a melody, but the song gets caught in this throat and he almost suffocates on his own silence. 

He stares at the ceiling until enough light graces the ceiling for him to be able to see it properly. There are cracks above him, running in jagged lines across the building. They remind him of maps he’s seen, of the way the coasts are drawn in those maps. 

_ The coast.  _

Maybe he should still go. 

Jaskier had been, once before. A long, long time ago. 

There was a cottage not too far from the water, he remembered. It was left empty, and the key was in a wooden cubbyhole underneath the porch. It was left empty; once upon a time it had been inhabited, but now it was used only by travelers who carried the story of its existence between them through word of mouth. 

He could go there, maybe. Alone. 

He had to go somewhere, after all, and he somehow didn’t quite feel like leaving a trail in his wake, of stirring up questions and inquiry about the famous Witcher wherever he went. 

He wanted to be as alone as he felt. 

Jaskier would go to the coast, he decided. Alone. 


End file.
